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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Can you believe it's the last day of 2013? Where did this year go?! It must've slipped past me while I was losing myself in books. So many amazing books came out this year, and it's going to be a struggle to determine my top thirteen, but here it goes! I'm not ranking them, because well, that'd be too damn hard, so they're in no particular order.

I'm still not sure how I narrowed down the long list of amazing books I read over the past year to just my 13 favorites. But somehow, I did it. 2013 flew by, and so many books took up residence not only on my iPad and my bookshelf, but in my heart. So, without further ado -- here are my top 13 books of 2013.

13. Sins & Needles by Karina Halle

12. Light in the Shadows by A. Meredith Walters

11. Vain by Fisher Amelie

10. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

9. Ten Tiny Breaths by K.A. Tucker

8. Tangled by Emma Chase

7. Tears of Tess by Pepper Winters

6. Blind Obsession by Ella Frank

5. Quintessentially Q by Pepper Winters

4. Try by Ella Frank

3. Ricochet by Krista and Becca Ritchie

2. Addicted to You by Krista and Becca Ritchie

1. Addicted for Now by Krista and Becca Ritchie

**Cheers to 2014 and all the incredible books that I'll find my nose buried in over the next year ;)**

Monday, December 30, 2013

He's addicted to booze. She's addicted to sex...staying sober
is only half the battle.

No. More. Sex.

Those are the three words Lily Calloway fears
the most. But Loren Hale is determined to be with Lily without enabling her
dangerous compulsions. With their new living situation—sleeping in the same
bed, for real, together—Lily has new battles. Like not jumping Lo’s bones every
night. Not being consumed by sex and his body.

Loren plans to stay sober, to right all of his
wrongs. So when someone threatens to expose Lily’s secret to her family and the
public, he promises that he’ll do anything to protect her. But with old enemies
surfacing, Lo has more at stake than his sobriety.

They will torment Lily until Lo breaks.

And his worst fear isn’t relapsing. He hears the
end. He sees it. The one thing that could change everything. Just three words.

No. More.Us.

New Adult Romance recommended for
readers 18+ for mature content

******

Yep.
That’s me. Fangirling like it’s my job, because I am ridiculously, obsessively,
probably unnaturally in love with this series. I have tried to convey my
feelings through my reviews of Addicted
to You and Ricochet, but
honestly, I don’t think they do justice. No matter what I say, it won’t
adequately describe how incredibly amazing this series is. Nevertheless, I’m
going to give it another whirl with this review, and who knows…maybe third
times a charm.

Addicted for Now
starts
off right where we’re left at the end of Ricochet.
Lo is back home after his stay in rehab, and Lily is slowly working to overcome
her addiction to sex and self-love. Going without sex for 90 days while Lo was
away tested her strength and self-control like never before, but now she is
faced with an even bigger challenge; sleeping in the same bed as Lo, every night,
not acting on her physical urges, and letting Lo control their sex life.

But
that isn’t the worst of Lily’s problems. Someone knows about her addiction, and
has threatened to expose her secret. Between Lo striving to maintain his sobriety,
Lily struggling to relinquish her sexual control, and the hunt to find out
where these threats are coming from, these two are challenged over and over
again; but through it all, they always have each other.

One
of the reasons why this series is so remarkable, in my opinion, is the
character development. Lily and Lo aren’t just two, entitled rich kids who have
dependencies that can’t be explained, or addictions that were taken up simply
due to boredom. These are two broken people who have developed and leaned on
their addictions, and each other, because of deep seeded issues. But it’s not
just the character development of Lily and Lo that blows me away; it’s for all
the characters. Connor, Rose, Ryke, Daisy – all of them are so magnificently
written that even though these books focus on Lily and Lo, the secondary characters
don’t feel that way. They aren’t pushed to the background, and simply looked
over. The storyline involves them in such a way that makes them every bit as
essential as Lily and Lo, and I legitimately adore every single one of them. (If you read my review of Ricochet, you’ll know my love for Ryke
shines brighter than the rest, but that’s neither here nor there.) The relationships
are genuine, the situations are immensely well thought out, and the combination
of character originality and storyline perfection is what makes these novels pure
brilliance.

The
Ritchie sisters continue to blow me away with their writing abilities, although
I don’t know why I would expect any less at this point. They seamlessly weave
these six characters’ lives into a storyline that not only highlights each of
them, but makes them feel real. One
scene in particular that comes to mind is towards the end of the book, and it involves
Ryke and Lo. I broke down into a crying mess. The sheer emotion in that scene just
wrecked me. Oh, and the situation with Lily and the new therapist?!?! AND the identity of the leak?! I can't even....

Look,
here’s the bottom line: Krista and Becca Ritchie can fucking write, and they have
managed to create an original series that just keeps getting better and better.
If you haven’t read these novels yet, you are missing out on some of the most
original characters, creative storylines, and utterly superb writing I have
ever experienced. If someone were to ask me “Why
do you read?”…I would say “Because of series like this. That’s why I
read.”